Remembering VE Day - Brian's Story
Chelsea Pensioner Brian Looks Back on His Time as a Teenage Paratrooper in World War II
Brian Howarth was only 16 when he joined the British Army in 1942. Three years later, he was risking his life as a paratrooper in a huge airborne battle over the Rhine. Although he is now in his 90s, Brian’s memories of wartime remain as vivid as ever.
“I lost my parents, but the Army was my family. I grew up in Wigan. In 1942, I volunteered for the Army – you were meant to be 17, but I have the wrong age. The War was on and lads like me all wanted to join up. Because I’d been to a radio college, they said I should join the Royal Signals as an Operator.
When I came home for my first leave my father was dying in hospital. I lost him and my mother within weeks of each other and had to see to both of their funerals. I’d just turned 17.
I was posted to Number 2 Corps of Signals. We travelled all over Britain and it was wonderful. The Army was my family and they were looking after me.
I DID EIGHT JUMPS AND THEN I WAS A PARATROOPER
We came back to the south of England and then D-Day happened. I thought I was missing the war, so I joined the Paras. I think I did eight jumps and then I was a paratrooper! In August 1944 I was sent to Bulford – I was K Section Signals, 5 Parachute Brigade, 6th Airborne Division. We trained until Christmas Eve 1944 when our brigade sailed from Dover to Ostend. We were the lightest brigade and they wanted us there quick because it was the Battle of Ardennes – the Battle of the Bulge as it was called.
We landed in a big town called Namur in Belgium and travelled south. I had a very good friend, Louden – we were bosom pals. We were in this chateau and one afternoon I didn’t see him and wondered where he’d gone. In the morning, I found out he’d been killed in the night. He’d gone with the 13th Battalion into a village called Bure to take it from the Germans. He’s buried in the Holland Cemetery in Belgium.
WE DIDN’T HAVE GUNS AS THEY’D GIVE OUR POSITION AWAY
I volunteered to take Louden’s place and the next morning they took me out to the village where the fighting was. We were armed with knives, as guns would give our position away. There was a squadron of tanks with us, but the Germans had two Tiger tanks. We had 60% of the village but the two Tigers used to just rumble up the street and then turn around and go back.
On the third morning we got up and the Germans had gone. So, we moved out to Namur and then travelled on into the Ardennes before going to the aerodrome in Brussels to fly home. We were delayed because the Germans had bombed the airport and they had to keep filling the holes in.
We were back in England at the beginning of March and went on disembarkation leave. On the 24th, the whole division was sent back and we dropped over the Rhine in Germany.
YOU’D SEE THE SHELLS COMING AT YOU WHEN YOU JUMPED
I was with the K Section Signals on the drop. It was very bad – there were 20% casualties and dozens of guns and aeroplanes everywhere. The air crew in their flak suits were sitting ducks. There were loads of planes shot down and you’d see horrible things. I don’t remember being frightened – you don’t think it’s going to happen to you.
You just jumped. And as you jumped out of the side, the slipstream opened your parachute. You’d see the shells coming at you – they’d come in a circle, very slow then fast. We were with the Yanks – 82nd division and 101st division parachutes. They were mostly our pilots and were very brave – they’d drop you as low as they could. They used to say,
“You guys jump without a reserve” because they had reserve parachutes and the British didn’t. Back in England, we’d been given a mock-up of the area and we were supposed to take the brigade HQ, a farmhouse. We actually did take it and from then on the advance into Germany was just the width of the road.
SOME PRISONERS WERE OLD MEN, SOME BOYS OF 14
There were about 20 of us in the K section.
On the third or fourth day we were given a white scout car. It was part armoured, but the back was just canvas so the bullets could come in! From there we took Münster, Osnabrück, Minden, and lots of villages in between. And it was just moving on like that – there was never anybody in front of us, only Germans.
Then the Sergeant Major told me to escort some prisoners back. We had to take them down the road to the first Allies we came across and pass them on. I was escorting about 20 of them – some were old men and some were boys of just 14. They were no trouble at all.
We came to an artillery outpost – they only had one gun – and left the prisoners there. Then I picked up a bicycle and set off back to join the unit. Eventually a motorbike came up behind me and it was Griffiths, one of the dispatch riders from the 13th Battalion. He’d been sent to find me.
I WAS SHOT IN THE STOMACH AND HE WAS HIT IN THE CHEST
Griffiths and I carried on until we came to the column. The colonel, the brigadier and the driver were in the front jeep and the colonel told us to carry on into the village about 400 yards away. We went around the first right-hand bend and I said “Griff, I’ve been hit”. I was shot in the stomach and then Griff was shot in the chest – and there we both were, lying there. We all carried morphine – it took about three goes to get any into me.
After a few hours, an ambulance took us to a field medical centre. I was unconscious but woke up to hear someone say, “We’ll do him”. Then I was unconscious again. When I woke up, I was in an Army hospital. They’d resectioned my bowels in many a place and got me somewhat recovered before bringing me back to England on an ambulance plane.
They wrote to my aunt saying I was recovering well, but the next day they had to send another to say I’d worsened. I had pleurisy and other chest problems. They pumped 27,000 units of penicillin into me. Penicillin had only just come out and I think it saved my life. The worst pain was being injected into the back of the lung cavity – it burned.
THE BIGGEST AIRBORNE OPERATION IN HISTORY SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN FORGOTTEN
On VE Day I was lying in the hospital while the celebrations were going on in the square below. The nurses brought us mirrors so we could look at the people down there enjoying themselves!
Afterwards, I was sent to a hospital in Ormskirk and from there to a convalescent depot in Chester. There were troops from every regiment there, mostly wounded. I was there until October. I hadn’t recovered. I needed other operations but I wasn’t fit to have them, so they discharged me from the Army. I had to wait until June 1946 to have another operation to correct everything – I’ve had some troubles with my injuries since then, but not a great deal.
I have three medals from my time in the Army – the 39-45 star, the France-Germany medal and the war medal. Looking back, I feel proud of my Army service but at the time you just do as you’re told. One day follows another. I think the drop over the Rhine has been neglected – it was the biggest airborne operation in history but nobody mentions it. The years come and go and they talk about Waterloo and things but 24 March 1945 seems to have been forgotten.
After the Army I became a long-distance driver. I got married and had two sons. In the early 1990s I got a letter from the War Pensions telling me about the Royal Hospital and I became a Chelsea Pensioner in 1991. The accommodation here has got better. We only had a room 9 foot by 6 foot when I moved in and there was slopping out! I still live independently and I have friends here.